What makes manufacturing companies more desirous of recycling?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to specify the treatment options of manufacturing companies with the specific emphasis on recyclable wastes. The options are focused mainly on recycling instead of taking recycling issue as a sub-function of environmental policies or reverse logistics disposition strategies. This paper also aims to find out if there are some relationships between those options and some characteristics of manufacturing companies.Design methodology approach - A survey methodology is structured in order to collect pure categorical data. Pearson chi-square and categorical regression analyses were carried out on a sample of 255 Turkish manufacturers mostly operating in the textile, furniture, automotive and machinery industries.Findings - The results indicate that some characteristics that were expected to have relationships with the treatment options, are supported by the two analyses while others are not. For example, "employing at least an engineer" is in double-supported and "collaboration with other companies for returns" is in the non-supported characteristic.Practical implications - The results can be used as a guideline for manufacturers when they try to find out what obstacles are making their companies less desirous of recycling. The companies will be able to eliminate those obstacles and gain some competitive advantages by recycling materials.Originality value - The approach to treatment options on recyclable wastes, from manufacturing companies' point of view, links together the behavioural issues and institutional levels of those companies. This study is unique not only in handling those issues in this perspective by intensely focusing on recycling, but also by being the first large sample survey of those issues in Turkey.